Thursday, June 23, 2011

Thanks to word of mouth from friends and colleagues, my Internet marketing work has kept me busy, so I haven't really focused too much on blogging. In case you are curious, here what I am up to:

Full-service internet marketing for a trading advisory firm who markets veteran traders in futures, forex, equities and options. I handle their web development, search engine optimization, social media, pay-per-click, email and affiliate marketing among many other projects.

Search marketing for a women's health website. I manage their rather large pay per click budget and help grow the company with search engine optimization and social media marketing strategies. The website itself has millions of pages.

Occasionally I find time to take on smaller projects...but only if you are nice. :)

Anyway, thanks for dropping by. Browse through some of my older posts. You might find some nuggets of gold in there.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted. I have been very busy with a new client, building websites, setting up PPC campaigns and generally doing a plethora of Internet marketing.

I have learned a tremendous amount in the last 6 months - one thing especially. And that is AB testing with your landing pages. I have seen tremendous success with simply testing a new headline or even a different color.

Google makes it so easy now to do this. Google offers 2 ways to test – a simple AB test where you test a couple variables or mult-variate testing where you can test a bunch of items. I have just been using the simple test since my clients don’t get millions of page views.

Set up is very simple. You just install snippets of code on your main “control” page, your variation page, and your goal page. Then you start the test.

I have seen conversion differences upwards of 3% just by changing the headline.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Part of me hates using headlines like this because they only tell part of the story. If you don't already know, Digg is a social media website where users vote on which articles they like. The articles with the most votes move to the top of the heap. But like any community - online or otherwise - Digg users have their own likes, dislikes, quirks and tastes. They may not like what you have to say - not that they are necessarily hostile towards you. It's just that Digg users simply may not dig your stuff. So whether or not Digg fits your demographic, the point here is that if you can find a social network that includes your target audience, you can get good traffic and sometimes lots of it.

The brilliant people over at Marketing Sherpa just wrote an insightful "how to" article on how to use Digg to implement viral marketing strategies. Rather than try to summarize the article (and possibly butcher it), I'll let you read it from the horse's mouth.

How to Use Digg To Go ViralSUMMARY: For marketers on a tight budget, viral marketing can be a cost-effective alternative. But execution relies on referrals and word of mouth, so it’s difficult to measure the impact.

There are places, though, where content can go to flourish. Like Digg.com -- a social media website that can serve as a launch pad for a surge in your Web traffic. Learn how Digg.com works and how to craft content that “diggers” will love to discover and share.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Can social networking and social search sites generate better search results than the reigning King Google? I guess we shall see. I personally don't think so - at least not in the near future. Here's a teaser...

Can Social Search Take Down Google?Jimmy Wales' Wikia Search will open to the public next week with an eye toward improving search by letting users tweak search results in a fashion similar to how users edit entries on Wikipedia.

Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, announced that the project would enter public beta on January 7. The goal, he said, is to reduce the "bottleneck of two or three firms really controlling the flow of search traffic..."

Monday, December 31, 2007

Outlook 2008: Online MarketingBrandweek Magazine - New York,NY,USASearch engine marketing (aka buying keywords) continues to be the dominant force in online advertising. A full 40% of online ad budgets are expected to be ...

Celebrities and gadgets lead Web searchesBuffalo News - NY, United StatesThat’s based on new data from the largest Internet search engines showing what their users looked for when they went online this year. ...

It is the sales stupid!MediaShift Idea Lab - San Francisco,CA,USANow, at least for the time being, I'm declining Google (adsense) and any pay per click routine. Why? Many reasons but one of them is that Google's publisher ...

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Sorry it's been so long since I posted. Frankly, I've been a little burned out and needed a break. But I am back now and good to go...at least I think!

Anyway, here's a quick rundown of an important file to have on your web server right on the root. It's called robots.txt. Uploading the file to the root means that it is not located in any subfolder. After you upload this file to your server, you should be able to access the file by typing this into your web browser: http://www.mydomain.com/robots.txt

Robots.txt helps the visiting search engine spiders navigate to the pages and directories on your website. You can also set your robots.txt to tell the spiders to block certain directories on your site. One last item is that you can add the location of your site map so the spiders can find it.

The "User-agent: *" means this bit of code applies to all search engine robots.

The "Disallow: tells the robots that they should not visit any pages within those directories.If you are okay with the robots visiting all areas of your site then simply don't put anything after it like this: Disallow:

The line of code about the sitemap tells the spider where your sitemap is located. A sitemap is basically a list of all individual webpages on your site saved in a format called XML. I can't get into all the details here, but I will say that it is VERY important you create a sitemap! There a number of free tools online that will help you do this. Google also has some sitemap resources as well. I'll give more sitemap explanation in another post.

Remember that robots.txt can't force the spiders to do anything. If that were the case anyone could easily manipulate search engine results. However, having a robots.txt helps guide the spiders to the areas they need to go.

You can also use robots.txt to block visiting spiders, but again, some robots can ignore your robots.txt. Don't try to use your robots.txt for website security!

To create the file, open up notepad. Type in the code you want. Then save the file. Be sure to save it all lower case - robots.txt. Then upload the file to your webserver root.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Google Inc. wants to offer consumers a new way to store their files on its hard drives, in a strategy that could accelerate a shift to Web-based computing and intensify the Internet company's competition with Microsoft Corp.

Google is preparing a service that would let users store on its computers essentially all of the files they might keep on their personal-computer hard drives -- such as word-processing documents, digital music, video clips and images, say people familiar with the matter. The service could let users access their files via the Internet from different computers and mobile devices when they sign on with a password, and share them online with friends. It could be released as early as a few months from now, one of the people said.

Before we begin, it’s important for you to understand how search engines work. Otherwise these search engine optimization tips won’t make much sense to you.

So what is a search engine anyway?A search engine is a computer program that indexes and searches a set of documents for specified keywords and then returns a list of the documents where those keywords were found. Now that’s a mouthful! Google is one example of a highly complex search engine built by hundreds of really smart people that has indexed billions of documents. While human beings built the Google search engine, no human being is involved when you conduct a search using Google.

What are keywords?Keywords are individual search terms or phrases associated with a given document. The document could be a web page, PDF file, Microsoft Word or Excel document, image, or any other file type. People use keywords to find your website. You want to know which keywords your prospective customers are using so you can attract them to your site.

Now, on to the tips!

1) Install a Web Analytics Package for TrackingLooking at web analytics is like looking at an X-ray of your website. You are able to see the number of visitors to your site, which sites are sending you traffic, which pages are most popular, what keywords people are using to find your site, how long people are staying on your site, which search engines are sending you the most traffic, and more. You can either purchase a web analytics package or install one that is free. Google offers a free one called Google Analytics.

2) Research Your CompetitionThis is a great way to help you brainstorm and get keyword ideas. Pretend you are your own customer. Go to Google.com and type in the keyword phrases you would use to find the products or services you sell. Click on some of the websites that show up. Try another phrase, and another and another. When you are on a competitor’s website, right click with your mouse. Then choose View Source. This will show you the actual website code. Look near the top and look for keywords in the <TITLE> tag, <META NAME=”DESCRIPTION” and <META NAME=”KEYWORDS” tags. Take note of which sites appear for your different queries. The idea is to discover which keywords will not just bring you traffic, but also targeted, motivated buyers who want what you have to sell.

3) Use Keyword ToolsTry these keyword tools to get an idea of keyword popularity. Keep in mind that the keyword counts are not exact. Use them only as a guide to get a rough idea of how much traffic one keyword gets relative to another. Three keyword tools to try are Word Tracker (paid), Keyword Discovery (paid) and the Google Keyword Tool (free).

4) Find Keywords that Get Leads and Make SalesFind out which keywords are most profitable for you by running a small Google Adwords campaign. Be sure to use the built-in Keyword Tool Google offers to help build your campaign. Install the Adwords conversion tracking code on your site, and be sure to ask your prospective call-in customers what keywords they typed in to find you. Once you know your most profitable keywords, use them in all the ways below.

5) Keyword-Rich Title TagsWrite a different keyword-rich title tag for each page of your website. Make sure your title tag reflects the content of the page and uses keywords. Do not use the same title for every page! Your title tag should look something like this:

<TITLE>Keyword Title Here</TITLE> or <TITLE>Custom Cabinets by Joe Woodworking</TITLE>

6) Keyword-Rich Meta TagsWrite keyword-rich meta description tags. Make sure to write an original description for each and every page of your site. Don’t copy the same one over and over. The code should look something like this:

<META NAME=”DESCRIPTION” CONTENT="This is where you write a couple keyword-rich sentences describing the benefits of your business." />

7) Keyword-Rich Header TagsUse your keywords in header tags. Make sure you have a headline with an H1 tag at the top every page, and use your keywords in the headline. The code looks like this: <H1>Keyword Headline Here</H1>

8) Keyword-Rich Web ContentUse your keywords in the text you write on each page of your website. This may sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how many website owners fail to do this. Example: “We specialize in affordable custom cabinets for homes across the United States.” Do not use duplicate content on your web pages either.

9) Using Images SparinglyAvoid using images where you can use text instead. The search engines can’t identify images very well. Yes, there are image tags called ALT tags which can help to get images recognized, but to my knowledge, text always works best. If possible, make sure your site navigation is text, not images.

10) Quality, Inbound LinksGet relevant inbound links to the pages of your site from other reputable websites. Use your keywords in the “anchor text” for the inbound link. Each link has two parts. The hyperlink is the URL to the page you want the site to link to. The anchor text is the visible text on the page that people see. Your anchor text should include your keywords. The code will look something like this:

Contact other relevant websites and ask either to exchange links or offer to pay for a link from their site to yours. The basic philosophy here is that links are like little votes for your website. The more links you have from high-traffic, trustworthy websites, the better. These links carry more weight than those from an obscure website with very little traffic.

11) Make Internal LinksLink to your most important pages from within your own website. It’s similar to getting links (votes) from outside websites except you are doing it yourself. You probably have one or two web pages in addition to your home page that could use more traffic. Place additional links to those pages so that they stand out to the search engines. Put hyperlinks to those web pages in the content of other web pages.

12) Create Link BaitCreate “link bait” web pages. If your business lends itself to this approach, this can be a great way to get a ton of traffic to your site.

The basic idea is that you craft a well-written article about a topic within your industry. It might be an educational article on “how to avoid the pitfalls” or “the top 10 tips” or a “how to choose” article. Once the article is done, submit it to one of the larger social networks like Digg or StumbleUpon. Make sure the community to which you submit your article is interested in your topic! If your article gets enough positive reviews, it will get pushed to the top of the list, and lots of people will see the article teaser and click over to your web page.

You might even consider creating an entire educational resources area on your site with dozens of articles. Press releases are a form of “link bait” since you are enticing reporters and editors to visit your site. Use a service like PR Newswire or PR Web to get the word out.

13) Blogging BasicsSet aside time for blogs. If you have the resources to maintain a blog and it’s appropriate to your business, creating a blog as part of your website can bring quality traffic. Just make sure you have the time and energy to post frequently. Consider posting on other relevant blogs too, but make sure your posts are well written and informative! Don’t post a silly comment just to get a link.

14) Build SitemapsCreate a sitemap. Build a simple web page that has links to all pages of your website. This purpose for this page is to give the search engines a quick access point to “spider” or find and index all your web pages. You can also create an XML version of your sitemap to submit to Google and Yahoo! There isn’t enough room here to discuss XML, but you can find XML sitemap tools on the web.

Well, there you have it. These 14 tips are by no means an exhaustive treatise on search engine optimization, but they should help you get started in the right direction!

Monday, November 12, 2007

A new search company called iRazoo, hopes to make search even more relevant by integrating "social search" elements.

“The real question here is, can a small band of guys uproot a big gorilla? The answer is yes. It’s already been done. Yahoo used to be king and now Google is. Relevancy won in the end of that race and we can be even more relevant using human intelligence and collaboration. Our goal is to have 99.9 relevancy within the first three search results.” That’s from Neal Verma, one of the Houston-based founders of a new search engine called iRazoo, talking to startuphouston.com about their latest venture, billed as world’s first people powered, points driven, search engine.

The great thing about the Internet is that it is constantly evolving. Even as social networking (Facebook, Orkut) has become a major fad, there is a relatively new trend on the block. It is called social search. If you want a single line definition, it’s a trend that is introducing a human element into Internet searches. If search engines are technology’s gift to knowledge seeking and sifting, using spiders and bots which retrieve information in a split second, they are now turning populist, literally, using people to rate sites and thereby influence their ranking. Verma calls it the second revolution of search. “We’re taking computer-driven algorithmic results and mixing that in with human intelligence.”

Facebook, the hugely popular social networking site, has launched their equivalent of Google Adwords. Only time will tell whether the Facebook community accepts or rejects them. Read a nice Facebook Ads Review here.